If you’re interested in getting into the royalty free music business you’re probably wondering if there is any real money to be made in it. I mean after all, just that fact that the word “free” appears in the business model doesn’t really make it all that appealing. Well, let me give you the straight dope on this biz and then you can make up your own mind as to whether or not you want to get into it.
I’m going to assume that you’re a musician, or at the very least, a composer. I’m also going to make another assumption here. Forgive me if I’m way off base on this one. I’m going to assume that you’d rather be spending your time as a big rock star or pop songwriter making millions of dollars just like Diane Warren. Yeah, I wish i had her money too, not to mention her talent. But I digress.
Yeah, the truth is, if we had our choice we’d probably rather be doing something else and the royalty free music business is just an alternative to our true love. I pretty much admitted this myself in another article. Sure, I’d rather be writing hit songs for just about anybody. No, I’m not picky.
But let’s be serious and honest about things. The music business itself is cutthroat competitive. It is extremely difficult to make a name for yourself. Many people give up their whole lives for the business and never make it.
So creating royalty free music and selling it is a way to make a few bucks without having to sell your soul. But the question is, can you make any real money doing it?
Well, that depends on a number of factors that I’m going to get into in some detail. The whole process is a lot more complex than what’s to follow but this should at least give you some idea of what you’re getting yourself into.
For starters, you have to decide what kind of royalty free music you’re going to write. Are you going to cover all genres like I’ve done or are you going to specialize in just a couple or even one? The advantage of covering multiple genres is that you’ll appeal to a wider audience. The downside is that you’re probably going to be writing some music that you’re not as familiar or comfortable with as another genre, making it more difficult to create quality tracks for that particular genre.
In my case, I’m very comfortable with rock, pop, classical and orchestral music. I’m not as comfortable with ethnic music. I have to study and work much harder at those tracks. And don’t get me wrong. Just about any music can be emulated if you listen to enough of it. After all, that’s how you became comfortable with the music you ARE good at. You just kept listening to it over and over and over, maybe even for years. I grew up with rock, pop and orchestral music so it’s second nature to me. I didn’t hear my first ethnic piece until I was an adult. And I certainly never studied the various ethnic genres. Indian music was a foreign to me as Calculus.
Okay, so after you’ve decided on what kind of royalty free music you’re going to concentrate on, the next thing you have to do is decide what market you’re going to go after. Who do you want to sell your music to? Do you want to restrict yourself only to other musicians or are you going to go after a wider audience? I’m targeting just about anybody who has a need for royalty free music including webmasters, night club owners, Internet marketers, radio stations and on and on. That’s easy to do when you don’t focus on just one or two musical styles.
After you’ve decided on your target market comes one of the biggest and hardest decisions you’re going to have to make. How much time and money are you going to put into this business? Time is pretty much self explanatory. It’s how many hours in your day that you’re going to work on your business. Money is not so obvious.
There are essentially two areas where you will need to spend money that will pretty much determine how successful you are with your royalty free music business.
At the top of the list is the software and hardware you’re going to purchase. Now there are free solutions for just about anything. But I have found that with very few exceptions, you get what you pay for. Cubase 7, which is a paid digital audio workstation (DAW) is head and shoulders above the free DAWs that you can get as far as what it can do. However, if you only need basic recording features, a free DAW might be okay. Personally, I could never get by with one.
Then there are the virtual synths (VSTs) that you will use to actually create the music. This is where free really doesn’t cut it, especially if you’re planning on creating authentic sounding orchestral music. My orchestral tracks are all made using East West Quantum Leap orchestral VSTs. They are, in my opinion, the best out there. They are certainly going to sound a lot better than the packaged synth strings that come with the free orchestral VST you managed to pick up from God knows where. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just listen for yourself.
Unfortunately, these great sounding VSTs cost money. An average one goes for about $300 that’s worth anything at all. Some are cheaper but I’ve found few that sound really great for under $150.
Do I own some free VSTs that are amazing? Yes, I do. Synth1 is a perfect example of one but it’s still limited in what it can do. It specializes in analog synth sounds and that’s about it. You won’t get an authentic sounding violin out of it.
Of the hundreds of VSTs that I own, most of them free, the ones that I find myself using most often are, you guessed it, the ones that I paid for. There’s a reason for that.
So you need to decide how much money you’re going to put into the music creation part of your business. But that’s only half the equation.
There is also the marketing end.
The saying “build it and they will come” just isn’t true on the Internet. With the hundreds of thousands of royalty free sites alone, the chances of somebody finding you are slim to none unless you do some kind of promotion. And that takes money. Sure, you can go the free route or try to get organic search listings but that will take time. You need to decide how long you can wait to start making money.
In the meantime, don’t quit your day job.
And this is really just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot to consider before deciding whether or not to go into the royalty free music business. So if you have any specific questions, please feel free to write me. You can find my email address on the Contact page on my site.
Yes, there is real money in creating royalty free music. But like anything else, you will get out of it what you put into it. So think about this real hard before making a final decision.
Until then, happy music making.
Whatever you decide to do.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim